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moxogeni · 1 month ago

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>what exactly is preventing your society from arranging itself into a feudal society just as existed the last time humanity lived in pre-industrial conditions? The goal of my political project is about minimizing coercion. I have attempted to do this by creating material conditions in which people have little leverage over others, and social/political conditions which are free of spooks. When individuals aren't dependent on each other, then the conditions under which hierarchy develops do not arise.

>Collective, industrial labor can protect you from starvation a lot better than individual "primitive" labor can, and so I feel any "humiliation" one may experience by having to work alongside other people towards a collective goal is offset by the benefits of collectivization. Collectivization necessitates the atomization and negligibility of the individual, but I think we'd just have to agree to disagree on this one, since it's a matter of preference between an easy, less free life and a harder, freer life.

>My first disagreement is that Kaczynski (and you by extension) routinely conflate industrial technology with the social system of capitalism and thus assume that there exists a unique "industrial society" separate from capitalism that is responsible for all modern socio-psychological ills, and so if we were to abandon capitalism but retain industrial technology, then these socio-psychological ills would remain despite our best efforts. As a former leftist myself, the reason I left is because I read ISAIF, which laid out those problems which are inherent to Industrialism, regardless of the system that runs it. Nobody is saying that if we were to get rid of capitalism, life would not be better. In many ways it would. But the point of Neo-Luddism are those problems which no system can solve, the inherent aspects of Industrialism.

>My second disagreement is with Kaczynski's concept of the "power process", which his ideas of "surrogate activities" and his conception of autonomy come from. He is quite frankly just extrapolating his own experience as a middle-class white man living in the US to be a universal experience, and his own particular complexes with regards to individual power and autonomy as necessary for the human psyche with a "biological basis". This is the U.S. population by race and income. Obviously what Kaczynski wrote about was mostly applicable to the middle-class, because that's what a majority of people are.

https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/

Kaczynski's analysis is irrelevant to his race, and is completely relevant to his material conditions, so I don't know why you added "white" into there. Anyway, basically all philosophy is extrapolating off your own personal experiences, and It'd be hard to find a psychological blueprint of the self that did not do this to some degree. Kaczynski gives good examples and sufficient reasoning to back his idea of the self. Kaczynski himself admitted that his manifesto was a very rough sketch of his ideas, but I would say that a need for autonomy and work are at least to some degree prevalent amongst the population. I, myself, do not agree with the idea that every human being follows this psychological model, but it is applicable to most.

>If I were to give him the greatest benefit of the doubt, I would say that what he is describing is in actuality the alienation of capitalist society. However, where Kaczynski inverts the Marxist conception of alienation is in presupposing that the pursuit of one's means of subsistence as an individual in the wilderness is inherently less alienating than industrial labor. He doesn't "presuppose" it; he spends most of the manifesto explaining why he feels that way.

>In any case, the Unabomber's manifesto is a thoroughly reactionary work that decries the modern decline in "traditional values", explicitly proclaiming racial and gender equality and LGBT rights to be socially negative. Kaczynski doesn't "decry" the decline of traditionalism. He outright mocks those who do, saying conservatives "whine about the decay of traditional values". What he does do is say that this decline in traditional values instead represents decline of small-scale social groups. I would disagree with Kaczynski on this front: Industrialism does not necessarily degrade social groups (Communism is a good example of the maintenance of these smaller groups). I think that you're speaking of his hatred of leftism. Yes, he does spend a good part of the manifesto spewing mostly unjustified nonsense about leftists, but he makes sure to explicitly say that he is not against their inherent ideas (he says abuse of women is a bad thing), just the psychological profile of leftism, saying "We do not mean to suggest that women, Indians, etc. are inferior; we are only making a point about leftist psychology." Kaczynski does however state some socially right-wing things, which I disagree with him on. He implies that transgenderism is a bad thing, which I would wholeheartedly disagree with (I am, in fact, transgender).

>He mythologizes the US settler colonial frontier lifestyle, treating it as an example of the type of society he thinks is ideal while ignoring the fact that these settlers were dependent on both the "collectivist" indigenous nations and the industrial cities they left behind for their survival. Kaczynski's accolades of the frontier lifestyle are based on his analysis of their material conditions, rather than their political ones. Futhermore, I wouldn't say that they were "dependent" on an Industrialized society. They lived mostly self-sufficient lives. Even if they were, he mostly uses it to point out how autonomy in labor leads to greater freedom and a satisfaction of the power process.

>He harps on about how we must only organize into "SMALL" groups of six people or less to preserve individual freedom and autonomy [...] despite the fact that humans routinely organize themselves into groups of hundreds of people within contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. "In those days an entire county might have only a couple of hundred inhabitants and was a far more isolated and autonomous entity than a modern county is. Hence the pioneer farmer participated as a member of a relatively small group in the creation of a new, ordered community. One may well question whether the creation of this community was an improvement, but at any rate it satisfied the pioneer’s need for the power process." Here, Kaczynski, while leaving the question of the group's creation up for the reader's discretion, does say that a group of a few hundred people could serve the need for the power process, and by extension, it is a satisfactory social arrangement. He does not "harp on" about "six people or less", he doesn't mention that at all.

>Kaczynski was an ignorant and bigoted man who thought he knew what was best for everyone else and murdered innocent people to make a statement. Besides the ad hominem, it's interesting to see you decry Kaczynski's killings despite supporting Lenin's revolution, which killed far more people. At any rate, all political philosophers more or less think they know what's best for everyone else, that's why they write: to improve the world.

>I would not agree that death is preferable. Explain why my reasoning is faulty.

>Kaczynski himself admits that what he calls surrogate activities are not universally unsatisfying. He asserts that either "many" or "most" people are unsatisfied, but he does not go so far as to say that all people are. I was generalizing, but wouldn't it be best to work toward a society where most people are satisfied (from a moralist perspective at least).

>then I say we can set aside some plot of land sufficient enough for however many people who want to live this lifestyle. If they decide to stay, then they can. If they don't, then they can come back. This is a very good segue into another problem I have with Industrialism: sustainability. No matter how conservatively you allocate resources, eventually, the mines will dry up, and the pastures will become infertile. There simply isn't a way to get around that Industrialism is built on the idea that there will always be replacement parts. Sometimes, you just have to throw things away. When enough stuff gets thrown away, we run out of resources, and the system will collapse. When this happens, the population will be so bloated and so many people will be alive that the consequences will be disastrous, far worse than if we simply dismantled or destroyed the system right now. The organized and industrialized agriculture would collapse, and when this happens there will be a famine unlike the world has ever seen. It is better to get rid of it now than later.

>But you arbitrarily declare the pride one feels from collective achievement to be the result of a "surrogate activity" and thus inherently lesser than individual achievement. The original point I was making was that you were alienated from the objects you used on a day-to-day basis. You did not create any of them, you were given them in exchange for your labor in a (usually) completely unrelated task relative to that thing's production. When you asked why that mattered, I said that when you used something you had made, you feel proud and good about it and yourself.

>Kaczynski did not make a distinction between individual and collective activities when defining his surrogate activity, his distinction was between whether or not the goal satisfied one's physical needs Not the definition of surrogate activity. This is: "Given a person who devotes much time and energy to the pursuit of goal X, ask yourself this: If he had to devote most of his time and energy to satisfying his biological needs, and if that effort required him to use his physical and mental faculties in a varied and interesting way, would he feel seriously deprived because he did not attain goal X? If the answer is no, then the person’s pursuit of goal X is a surrogate activity".

>I don't believe that activities that do not contribute to satisfying one's physical needs are "decadent" (in Kaczynski's words) or otherwise mentally harmful to the individual. You misunderstand the definition of surrogate activity, which is defined in the paragraph above. You said yourself that Kaczynski did not think that all non-subsistence activities are surrogate.

>That one can imagine a thing does not mean that thing can exist in the real world. By "imagine" I meant that such a social order could exist, obviously. You can "imagine" anything.

>And I'm perfectly fine with people who think like you being free to live in the wilderness as autonomously as you want, so long as you aren't hurting anyone else. (Bold and italics mine) That's where we have a disagreement: should a government be allowed to stop me from hurting others, from exercising my freedom without restriction?

>But why wouldn't more people specialize? I'm not saying that they wouldn't or that it'd be inherently bad. It's entirely possible everyone might have some kind of specialization (placed on top of their basic skills).

>How do you think we got to where we are today? Are the anarcho-primitivist egoists going to form a special order and go around burning down farms and pastures every time someone tries to re-invent agriculture? It's absurd to think that everyone will just abandon farming out of their own free will. Hunter-gatherers actually had a more varied and healthy diet than their farming counterparts*. I'd say it's absurd to think that everyone will just abandon hunter-gathering out of their own free will. Given that people did, in fact, abandon hunter-gatherer lifestyles in exchange for farming, I'd like to clarify. The level of technological order I propose would make living a quasi-primitive lifestyle much more consistent and easier than a primitive society (I'm not an anprim). I don't even think that practicing agriculture is inherently bad, it just tends to lead to coercive social arrangements that can be avoided via self-sufficient hunter-gatherer lifestyles

*https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2106743119

>What is the mechanism through which your egoist anarcho-primitivist society could be achieved The question of revolution is an important one. Personally, I'm a fan of "shadow cell" organization and direct-action. The first step to revolution is mass-radicalization. This will be easier in the coming years as everything goes to shit under the Trump Administration.

>what is the mechanism through which it would be maintained? Self-sufficency: the ability to eliminate coercion of dependence.

alright.

I'll start with Lenin first, then move to Marx. Lenin was an autocrat and a dictator. There's no way around it. He was unelected and created a one-party state. This was due to the fact that the revolution was led by a vanguard, which the members of, once they succeeded in overthrowing the old government, could easily set up a self-serving dictatorship. He's not a Marxist, and he's not a Socialist.

Since Lenin obviously did not in any way uphold the vision of Marx, I'll tackle him separately. A (stateless) communist society does eliminate many hierarchies, but leaves the most coercive systems untouched. Those being: the hierarchy of the collective over the individual and that coercion required of industrialism. In a commune, one's individual vote is negligible, since the outcome is only affected by one person's vote in very rare circumstances. Once the votes are tallied, the individual is expected to conform to the decisions of the majority, and to accept the commune's laws and customs. This leads to the individual becoming feeling helpless and weak.

Secondly, Marxism fails to address the coercion required to make an industrial society function. In order to have products, you must have a payroll of workers to stand where they are told to stand and do what they are told to do and go home and show up to work when they are told to do it. Instead of working towards goals that are immediate, which directly affect one's condition (such as building a house to live in), one must do a task or set of tasks that ultimately has little to do directly with one's own material well-being. Instead, the hyperspecialized work required in an industrial society is made livable indirectly via trade. This leads to a dependence on the industrial system as a whole, which requires a massive amount of cohesion to function.

Humans are no longer permitted to act autonomously since doing so would be a hindrance to the system. Behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed, but all unimportant facets of our life which do not interfere with the functioning of the system are permitted to grow within said limits.

Lenin was elected as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars by the Congress of Soviets a total of nine times before his death. His position was not one elected by the people directly, but rather he was elected by the congressional representatives of the soviets who were themselves elected by the people. You can argue that his position should have been directly elected if you want, but you cannot say he was unelected. Regardless, while the Chairman of the CPC was the head of government of the RSFSR, and later the Soviet Union, the CPC was not a one-person council and the council as a whole was subordinate to the Central Executive Committee, which was in turn subordinate to the Congress of Soviets. Lenin was not an autocrat or a dictator; he did not hold sole legal authority and the Soviet government had numerous checks and balances.

I see no reason to believe a vanguard party or a one-party state is undemocratic. The USSR was a dictatorship, but not a dictatorship of one person. It was a dictatorship of the proletariat, as the bourgeoisie were stripped of the right to vote and to be elected. You can object to this if you like, but I personally don't think that was a bad decision.

You seem to be arguing that Lenin was neither Marxist nor socialist because the nascent Soviet Union was not yet classless or stateless. Yet why should it have been expected to be? Communism is not something that can be achieved overnight, or even in one generation. In the meantime, there must be some mechanism for suppressing and overthrowing the bourgeoisie. No matter how democratic, how horizontal, and how people-oriented that mechanism is, it still constitutes a state insofar as it constitutes an organ for the oppression of one class by another. Unless you are arguing that the rights of the bourgeoisie should be maintained and protected, you cannot escape this fact.

At the point of achieving a stateless, classless communist society, I don't see why decision-making would necessarily be performed through simple majority vote. While it's rather pointless in my mind to be speculating about how a hypothetical communist society of the future might function, I think it's safe to say they'd be far more capable of exploring alternative forms of decision-making than we are now. In any case, the question of how a future communist society might function is entirely separate from questions of past and present systems of government.

You are right to point out that the industrial mode of production requires collective and specialized activity in order to function, but I fail to see what the alternative is. Humans are a social animal, our production has always been collective and we have always benefited from specialization in labor. The advancement in industry has made possible a reduction in socially necessary labor time, not an increase. It is capitalism and the profit motive that has mandated long hours and low autonomy in the workplace, not industry itself.

People are not inherently stupid or self-centered. They can understand very well the relationship between one sector of industry and another. You do not need to be building a house to understand how, for instance, the nails you are manufacturing will be used to build houses and other goods. You do not need to be manufacturing nails to understand how the iron you are mining will be used to make nails and other goods. The idea that it is alienating to be engaged in a task that is socially beneficial rather than merely individually beneficial is absurd.

You talk about social cohesion as if it is impossible or undesirable. But again, what is the alternative? An incoherent, fragmented society? No society at all, and people just fend for themselves as individuals? I fail to see how anything less than social cohesion is desirable.

You say that industrial society is coercive and prevents people from acting autonomously. I say, what does it mean to act autonomously? Humans must satisfy our basic needs before we can think about engaging in autonomous activity. If you are starving, you are compelled to seek food. If you are freezing, you are compelled to seek shelter. Individual freedom is subordinate to our material conditions, and only through improving our material conditions can we satisfy our basic needs and guarantee individual freedom.

If we are to have a society where the individual freedoms of everyone are maximized, then we must have a society which guarantees everyone their basic needs. Food, shelter, clothing, medicine, education, transportation, communication, etc. All of these must be secured before a person has full freedom to act autonomously. Improving the quality of these things and the efficiency of their production improves the standard of living and reduces socially necessary labor time, which allows for greater degrees of freedom.

You say behaviors which are not conducive to the system are disallowed. I do not necessarily disagree, but I feel you are intentionally obscuring the nature of such behaviors. What is “the system” here? The system is society. So a behavior not conducive to society is an anti-social behavior, a behavior that impedes or harms other members of society. Why should these behaviors be allowed? Is it maximizing autonomy and freedom to allow someone to steal or rape or murder with impunity? No, it is merely trading someone else's freedom and autonomy for your own.

You can certainly maximize your own freedom and autonomy at the expense of others, but if we are to live in a society where the freedom and autonomy of everyone is to be maximized, then there must be certain limits to individual behavior for the sake of others. Maybe someday humanity will evolve to a state where one can live in their own private world with maximum freedom to do as they please without worrying about impacting others, but until that day we will have to live in a society with other people and the social restrictions that come with that. Personally, I don't think it's such a burden to have to care about other people.

Society as it stands today is indeed imperfect and often oppressive. Socialist states in the past and present have yet to achieve the classlessness and statelessness that marks higher-stage socialism, i.e. communism. They too are imperfect and have restricted people's behavior in various ways, some I would argue are necessary, and some I would argue are unnecessary. However, I believe that socialism offers us the greatest opportunity to improve society as a whole and liberate humanity from oppressive structures. I believe that capitalism remains the central impediment to the advancement of society and the pursuit of human freedom. I believe that a vanguard party and a dictatorship of the proletariat have been the most effective means of combating the bourgeoisie so far. And I believe that the advancement of science and industry has been the most effective means of securing and improving the basic needs of the people as a whole.

My question to you remains: what is the alternative? You can criticize all you want, and thoughtful and rational critique of all things is both important and beneficial, but unless you have an alternative to socialist revolution and industrial society, then you're just throwing the baby out with the bathwater. How are we to combat the bourgeoisie without a vanguard or a state? How are we to provide people with their basic needs without industrial production?

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onetouchteststrip · 3 years ago

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"A technological advance that appears not to threaten freedom often turns out to threaten it very seriously later on. For example, consider motorized transport. A walking man formerly could go anywhere he pleased, go at his own pace without observing any traffic regulations, and was independent of technological support-systems. When motor vehicles were introduced they appeared to increase man's freedom. They took no freedom away from the walking man, no one had to have an automobile if he didn't want one, and anyone who did choose to buy an automobile could travel much farther than a walking man. But the introduction of motorized transport soon changed society in such a way as to restrict greatly man's freedom of locomotion. When automobiles became numerous, it became necessary to regulate their use extensively. In a car, especially around densely populated areas, one cannot just go where one likes at one's own pace, one's movement is governed by the flow of traffic and various traffic laws. One is tied down by various obligations: license requirements, drivers test, renewing registration, insurance, maintenance required for safety, monthly payments on purchase price. Moreover, the use of motorized transport is no longer optional. Since the introduction of motorized transport, the arrangement of our cities has changed in such a way that the majority of people no longer live within walking distance of their place of employment, shopping areas and recreational opportunities, so they they HAVE TO depend on the automobile for transportation. Or else they must use public transportation, in which case they have even less control over their own movement than when driving a car. Every walker's freedom is now greatly restricted. In the city he continually has to stop to sit for traffic lights that are designed mainly to serve auto traffic. In the country, motor traffic makes it dangerous and unpleasant to walk along the highway. (Note this important point that we have just illustrated withy hr case of motorized transport: When a system of technology is introduced as an option that an individual can accept or not as he chooses, it does not necessarily REMAIN optional. In many cases the new technology changes society in such a way that people eventually find themselves FORCED to use it.)

#ISAIF #Industrial Society and Its Future #neo-luddism #anti-tech

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transhumanitynet · 7 years ago

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The Social Futurist Worldview (3/4)

This piece is part of a series exploring salient aspects of the philosophy known as “Social Futurism” (a term coined and idea developed by myself from 2011-2018). For more full and systematic exploration of these ideas, see http://socialfuturist.party & http://socialfuture.institute.

Remaking the World

We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile. ― J.R.R. Tolkien

The essence of the Transhumanist idea is to remake the world, which is to say both the human condition and environment. To take away the pain and suffering associated with our mortal, biological circumstances, to move beyond our historical limitations. Aside from the fact that most Transhumanists are atheists (or at least agnostic), the reason that religious believers often feel antipathy toward Transhumanism is that it not only treads on the territory of their ancient and unfulfilled promises, but also that it actually has a chance of fulfilling them. With technology and the will to do so, we could in principle remake the world, and make it better.

3.1 Homo Homini Lupus Est: Beyond Human Brutality

As Titus Maccius Plautus said, “Man is as a Wolf to (Other) Men”. For all our ideals and technologies, as a species we are still animals, still quick to resort to violence when frustrated, and to use force (some forms more subtle than others) to get what we want. In reshaping our nature, Transhumanism offers the opportunity to change that… but we must tread very carefully indeed in making any such changes. Our “base animal nature” (to use a very Nineteenth Century phrase) is as it is for very good evolutionary reasons. To put it bluntly, it has kept us alive this long.

The basic ethos of Social Futurism is to embrace the transformative power of technology, but to do so in an intelligent and principled manner. Wilful Neo-Luddite ignorance, badly planned or executed technological intervention, and unprincipled exploitation are all equally problematic “failure modes” from a Social Futurist point of view. Following that logic, messing up an alteration of human nature in ways that endanger others is no less an error than opposing technology altogether, or using it for self-aggrandisement at the expense of the community.

3.2 Abolitionism & the Hedonistic Imperative

It is a small step from considering augmentation of the human condition, to thinking about upgrading nonhuman animals with technology. The latter idea is sometimes referred to as “Uplifting”, and bears some similarities to the idea of Abolitionism, as advanced by philosopher David Pearce. Simply put, Abolitionism is the idea that humans and other animals could be (genetically) engineered so as not to suffer, while preserving the motivational structures that pain evolved to serve. Discussions of the viability of that idea are beyond the scope of this piece, so for now we must restrict ourselves to two simple observations: (1) Abolitionism is, in principle at least, an explicit aspect of the Social Futurist philosophy. You can be an Abolitionist without considering yourself a Social Futurist, but all Social Futurists must inevitably at least recognise the Abolitionist ideal as one that is compatible with Social Futurist Principle. (2) That said, Abolitionism is not only an incredibly ambitious technical project, but it also comes with many attendant ethical challenges. Social Futurists are committed to taking those challenges seriously, not as a priori reasons to ban augmentation of animal biology, but as issues to be properly addressed before such work can be undertaken in a manner which is in accord with our principles.

For a whirlwind tour of potential issues, consider the following questions: What potential unforeseen consequences of such alteration might we encounter? How do we approach the matter of voluntary/desired “suffering” in humans? Is that even a real phenomenon, or does desired suffering cease to be true suffering? Can such a thing exist for animals? What about a little melancholy of the sort that has inspired the greatest poets; does that count? On what grounds should humans be able to refuse such alteration, for themselves or their children? Is it a problem that animals cannot give consent? What purely technical risks exist? (i.e. What might go wrong? How, and how badly?) How can such risks be mitigated? And so on.

3.3 Transhumanism as Radical Ecology

Beyond human nature itself, and that of other animals, the third part of our world is our environment (in the “green”, ecological sense). Just as we could in principle improve human and animal nature through the reasoned application of high technology, we could also do the same for the environment. Although technological development and expansion of the human population have caused a lot of environmental damage, the most effective solution to that problem is not to abandon technology altogether (even if that were a realistic option, which it is not). Although technology misapplied has caused considerable problems, the best way to solve those problems is to apply newer, higher technology in an intelligent and principled manner.

What kind of solutions are we talking about, specifically? Nanotechnology will be able to clean pollutants from air, soil, and water. Alternatives to fossil fuels already exist, and are only blocked by political-economic (i.e. Capitalist) interests. Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) has the potential to render all other fuel resources redundant, even if our civilizational power needs grew to be a thousand times what they are now. The possibility of offworld-living is regularly mocked, but it is not nearly as crazy as people tend to imagine. Decimated rainforests can be replaced with a combination of less reliance on them as a raw resource (who needs wood when vastly advanced synthetic materials are cheaply available?) and genetic engineering to re-establish species on the brink of extinction. We can heal this planet, if we so choose, and that would just be the beginning.

3.4 End Game: Augmenting Intelligence in a World of Natural Stupidity

All of these things are technically feasible, at least in principle. One approach – or even ten thousand – may fail, but we only need one to succeed. The real obstacle is humanity itself, and its stubborn adherence to narrow-minded, old-fashioned ways of thinking and acting. As I have explained in the previous parts of this series, we must break the chains of the past and its conventional moralities if we are to survive and thrive, as a species and a civilization.

Transhumanists and Social Futurists seek not only to create Artificial Intelligences, but to augment our own minds and bodies. To move beyond outmoded constraints, and become more. The world is full of stupidities – some merely regrettable and others dangerously wilful – and we can no longer allow them to hold us back. We must transcend ignorance by all means necessary, save ourselves, and save the planet in doing so.

The Social Futurist Worldview (3/4) was originally published on transhumanity.net

#Abolitionism #Ecology #Environmentalism #genetic engineering #nanotechnology #Neo-Luddism #politics #Principles #Social Futurism #Space-Based Solar Power #transhumanism #crosspost #transhuman #transhumanitynet #transhumanist #thetranshumanity

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cosmogyros · 6 years ago

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It's kind of ridiculous that people are scolded for staring at their phones and told to "look up and interact with the world" although they might be using the phone to interact with anyone, anywhere in the world – and meanwhile I, scribbling away navel-gazingly in my notebook and not paying attention to anything but the inside of my own head, somehow get a free pass.

#writing #interaction #double standards #don't get me wrong - journaling is awesome #and vitally important for my mental health #but it's not inherently any more 'valuable' than what you might do on a phone #learning something or communicating with someone or god knows what #the problem that meddling strangers have is clearly not where our attention is directed #so what is it? neo-luddism?#why do we have this need to police each other's presentness?#personal #cosmo gyres #text #musings

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morlock-holmes · 2 years ago

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People misunderstood what I meant; I wasn't clear enough.

I'm not predicting the future.

Rather, I am saying that *if* you argue that certain kinds of technological advancements are inevitable, you make it impossible to see technological advancement as liberating or revolutionary.

@not-terezi-pyrope

I agree with you that neo-luddism often, maybe usually has destructive aims, and I agree that it often classifies the world in aesthetic terms which make it very difficult to create positive change.

But, I think being immersed in the left-tech world you have your own blind spot, because here is how I would summarize your argument:

"Certain kinds of technological progress are inevitable. The question of whether they happen or not long ago passed out of human hands. The tools we have built *will* become our masters, and politics and human effort must now be devoted to the question of whether we have a good master or a bad master."

In order to get around that, you retreat to the material goods that the good master can provide for us, which are all fine and dandy and accurate, but they *do* come from the master.

How, with all of this implicit in your argument, could tech be liberating? A part of freedom is the ability to say, "No".

This neo-luddism is more than the result of simple aesthetic difference or reflexive dislike of capitalism; it's a response to real and very serious issues with the arguments you're making, and with the implicit blind spots in left-tech-boosterism.

I don't *like* that response; but it's a response to a legitimate problem.

One of the big blind spots of left tech boosterism (And dozens of other allied and competing philosophies, it's heavily built into the world order we all grew up in) is a belief that it doesn't matter who makes the decisions, as long as the results are good.

In other words, if someone makes a good decision for me, and forces me to follow it whether I like it or not, that's considered an equivalent result to me making that decision for myself, because the results are what matter.

This premise is actually very questionable!

Health and abundance may be *necessary* for freedom but we should never make the mistake of thinking that they are *sufficient*.

The casual and widespread disdain that people on the left have for the human inventiveness that has brought us modern lifesaving healthcare, food infrastructure, and a global connected community in exchange for a sort of noses-in-the-air trad/naturecore aesthetic larping is the ugliest thing about other members of my political demographic imo and is easily the largest ideological barrier preventing people in STEM fields from being more attracted to leftist movements.

People will deny that they have this bias, but this is because the air they breathe and the water they drink is so steeped in it they cannot see the wood for the trees. This assumption that tech = capitalism = destruction = evil, unlike us good pure anarcho-lefties with our trees and our rooftop gardens, we know how to return to nature like God intended and live lives of ascetic rural purity. None of this modern decadence - anyone who engages with that shit is automatically suspicious!

It's a purely aesthetic snobbery, ironically reactionary and regressive, that ignores the realities of living in a connected society and improving the quality of life of real people. It ignores the potential of technology as a revolutionary tool in favour of naïve and absurdly unworkable calls for blanket bans on all new (and some old) technologies. In doing so, it cedes the entire cultural cachet of science and tech innovation over to the centrist right, along with all of the political, social and cultural power that comes with embracing and shaping these movements constructively. It gives our best tools to the enemy and tells us that to be True Leftists we must shun these obviously useful things lest we fall prey to the decadences of convenience, such as being able to do video calls with one's long distance boyfriend or not dying of fucking cancer.

I hate this attitude so much and I am beseeching people to change the image of the left, especially left-anarchism, so that we can embrace tech, science and engineering as a tool of our own liberation instead of something to be scorned, left to the capitalists to monopolize, and then outlawed through the power of the state we are supposed to be fuckin' abolishing.

#Philosophy #Tech

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collegeinit · 5 years ago

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Neo Luddism (negative impact of technology)

The application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes is growing day by day. Technology solves problems with the various invention. Technology has both negative and positive impacts. The pace of technology is transforming society which has made life easy but also created inequality between people. The rise of technology (such as nuclear technology, automation) has raised many questions doubting technology. Neo-Luddism or new Luddism is an ideology opposing many forms of technology. This ideology was active in the early stage of the 90s. People having the same ideology is called neo-Luddite. Neo Luddites oppose technology that is materialistic or destructive of society.

Rise of technology

As a student of information technology, I have seen Technology has a big impact on the industrial revolution which has caused a large scale of urbanization. The technology was enhancing productivity with various inventions which helped industries work fast, easy and profitable. Due to this reason technology created many workers unemployed and in this period the labor wage started decreasing. This has created a big economic gap between people. Neo Luddism ideology is critical about technology. Neo Luddite is growing and cautious to adopt rising technology. Technology may be great but it can be harmful too. Technology is changing our society day by day. During my research I have found data from 1979 to 2008 U.S population has increased by 35% and manufacturing employments have dropped 31% from 19.4 million jobs to 13.5 million jobs. Technology invention has eliminated the jobs of humans by reducing the price of production. The adaption of technology has created huge unemployment for blue-collar jobs such as labor. It has also created a fear of losing jobs towards workers in various fields. Everyone is working very hard even when productivity has increased because of the fear of losing the job.

Internet

The Internet is one of the popular inventions of Technology. It is a great source of information but every source is not reliable and trustworthy. I found 40% of the world’s population is using social media. Technology has reduced distance between people but it has also created distance of social relationships between people. The Internet has grown and every new generation is now involving in social media. Social media is very addictive, people on average spend two hours every day. Using computers for a long period can cause burring the vision. The screen of a computer can generate radiation that can harm the eyes. According to me, Social media has a good impact on society but it also has a toxic environment. People have too much involved their life in social media. It can cause distractions while we are doing focused work. As more users are using the internet everyone may not have good intentions.

Increasing the use of computers has increased computer crimes. Technology is growing rapidly and breaching our privacy. Nowadays, privacy issues are also rising as a student of information technology privacy of an individual is very important. Tracking location and spying information of an individual can be very easy for professionals because of electronic devices connected to a network. Big corporate are collecting data of people and data can be the next source of income. Many websites collect data and use them for advertisement and marketing. Websites collecting data can track location and know users' likes and dislikes. Every individual has a different experience in social media but as I have seen social media it can influence people's perception. I have seen a piece of news about Cambridge Analytica which has collected millions of data of American citizens without their concern which helped Donald Trump to elect as a president of America. From this scenario, I can tell social media can influence and manipulate people. Mental health professionals are getting concerned about the impact of social media on mental health.

Digital divide

According to me, technology has created a Digital divide between people. Aleph Molinari described the digital divide as,” The Digital Divide is the gap between individuals and communities that have access to information technologies and those that don’t”. Mobile, internet, computer, etc are technologies creating a digital divide. The Internet has been a great source for information but everyone can’t access the internet because of poverty which creates information poverty. Every day new inventions are coming into the market and everyone can’t afford those inventions. Technology is made for the betterment of human life but it is causing enormous negative effects on human life and creating division.

Technology impact on the environment

Technology has a negative impact such as climate, energy, water and creates waste. The industry is consuming energy heavily. As the population is increasing use of vehicles using energy such as fuel is also increasing which is increasing air pollution. The usage of energy is affecting the earth’s climate. I have seen so many articles about global warming .technologies releasing carbon dioxide can be one of the causes of the greenhouse. Even in the field of agriculture uses technology which has a negative impact. Using pesticides, fertilizer and such chemicals can harm the soil. In context of Nepal I have not seen waste management from industry which is polluting the environment.

I found neo-Luddism is a philosophy that opposes technology that hampers human life. It shows the technological influence on people's life. People should know what they are using and how can they impact our lives. I found that while using technology people should be aware about how its working and its impacts in a long term. During my research I found various impacts of technology.

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